Slattery throws down the gauntlet

There were high stakes at the CommsDay Summit in Sydney, where telecoms entrepreneur
Bevan Slattery
delivered a loaded riposte to Macquarie Telecom chief executive
David Tudehope
.

On Monday, Tudehope predicted the demise within three years of many start-up data centre companies (of which Slattery’s Next DC has the highest profile).

Slattery told the floor: “David Tudehope just told me that I’m going out of business in three years’ time . . . I sat next to David last night and asked him this and he said: ‘Yeah, basically new entrants will probably go broke.’

“I hope David doesn’t believe that. But just in case he does, I’m going to bet him a million dollars [applause]. The winner selects a charity that it goes to. David Tudehope, it’s time to put up or shut up."

Apparently not, according to Tudehope’s email to Rear Window last night. “As I said in my speech . . . there will be a glut of co-location supply due to new data centre builds, which will overwhelm the increase in demand. This is what I said last night at dinner again and Bevan agreed there was going to be an oversupply in some markets. Clearly, I have no insight today as to who will fail or sell out. Bevan’s comments do not match my speech or five minute dinner conversation and presumably are designed to create publicity."